The Songbird
by Lee Athenson
Summary: Gale reminisces on Katniss, the Hunger Games, and how the war has irrevocably affected them both. Takes place at the end of Mockingjay, while Katniss is in detainment during her trial. Rated T b/c it's the Hunger Games. Gale POV. OneShot.


**The Songbird**

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><p>These past few years, I watched the fierce survivor of the woman I loved transform into a cracked shell of her old personality. Cameras circling like buzzards, sent on their mission by the vengeful Capitol, only aided this process. Every step of her descent into a darker world was publicly televised. Even in the mines, televisions hung from the top of the tunnels at important junctures.<p>

It was hard to go anywhere without seeing my best friend burned in an unnatural forest fire, deafened by massive explosions, or suffering through the death of her ally, Rue. Impossible to go anywhere without seeing her melted by acid fog, screaming Peeta's name as he died and returned to life, or cracking during an hour of computer-generated screams. Prim and I watched together in the evenings. Prim saw what I did: what the games really robbed from Katniss. Prim would cry into my shoulder, and I would let her, and sometimes I even returned the favor. When Katniss touched Peeta romantically, I didn't bother to hide my disgust and betrayal from Prim like I masked it at work. The little girl understood how I felt. We watched together because it took the edge off; still, it was horrible to watch. But we had to.

To everyone else, my hunting partner was just another tribute; but to me, her eyes told a unique story. Every day she spent in the arena, her eyes became a touch more feral, more calculating, more deranged. The thick habit of strength she developed in early childhood was peeling away from the inside, leaving only a hollowed shell behind. I wanted to rush in and pull her from the arena, then run to the wilderness and never return. I would have done anything - stolen a hovercraft, killed every citizen in the Capitol, even made the trek on foot, if I had to; but the ever-present rumble of my family's stomachs demanded I stay and work seventy hours a week.

I think of this now, sitting in the courtroom of Katniss' trial. She has been charged with the assassination of President Coin. The collected delegation of friends, enemies, and officials watch her demented antics from a ceiling-view fish-eye lens of her white walled prison. She's singing, singing in a way I've never heard before, her voice rising and falling inexorably like the morning sun and the heavy rain. It's painful to watch.

I know Katniss well enough to know what she is doing. She's terribly predictable, in a way.

When I was in pain, she kissed me. When Peeta was in pain, she did everything in her power to fix it for him. When Prim was in pain, she fought like a rabid wolf; she would take on the whole world.

When Katniss is in pain, she sings.

I know from seeing her around town when we were younger that she used to sing everywhere she went, one of her blithely strong little hands cupped in one of her father's. After his death, the songbird lost her warbling voice. I never heard a note out of her mouth. Not when we were in town, not when we were at home, not even in the woods. Her whole demeanor changed. She was stone silent, cold, and serious. Overnight, the songbird became a mute. Survival and strength were everything, to avoid a past too painful to bear. She only sang for me once; it was the anniversary of our fathers' demise. She sang a mountain air, one written in the dead of winter to express the iciness of the world. Deadened nerves, fragility, indifference, death. She taught it to me as a remembrance to our dead parents; I will never forget her expression as she sighed the words. It was cold, blank, bitter, just like the notes themselves. The dissonant tones and haunting harmonies were a way to rescind the world. It wasn't to soothe or comfort. It was a scripted death wish. When I sang the tune back to her, my voice uncertain and low, I watched an army of tears troop down her cheeks.

After that, she was more open with me. But she never sang again. I thought, for the longest time, that the song in the woods had been a strange fantasy, or a fluke, or a rogue dream. Katniss seemed so strong, and notes seemed inadequately bland for the power of her being.

Yet when she landed in the arena, I saw that foreign side of Katniss resurface. The woods scene became a reality again in my mind. Her songs in the arena reflected the fire of her emotions, the way the mountain air reflected the hollowness of loss. Her method for coping with pain was an unusual last resort; Maybe the notes made her feel closer to her father. Maybe singing made her feel more in tune with a time that she had felt secure and confident. Whatever the case, I watched this reality unfold on screen more times than I could count.

I sit in my witness' chair and watch with fierce intensity as Katniss meanders around the little room - a cell, really. I watch raptly, not because psychologists are dissecting her actions from a purely scientific view, not because there are members of the audience pointing out her particularly senseless refrains, and not because still others are screaming for her blood. I have to watch. Yet it's hard because I know that, at least in part, I have done this to her; I bear the blame in her mind for creating the bomb that killed her sister. Through her years in the arena, I wanted to do anything to protect her. But as soon as she got out, I was the one to send her over the edge. I sealed her madness, ensured she would be locked in that twilight world for the rest of her life.

No one understood how badly she was damaged after the war was over. No one understood her the way I did. So when she ran around the president's mansion, completely mute for the second time in her life, only I knew where she was and why. I never followed her. It wouldn't be right. I had stolen her sister; I couldn't take her solitude as well.

Yet the resentment that slept within me during the games roared into full being the day of the assassination. All the times I had seen her faking - and maybe not faking - love for Peeta made me hate her with every inch of my being. When she took the final shot of the war, cleanly and purposefully slamming the last arrow into Coin's chest, I watched her eyes. Her eyes had always told me more than what she intended; the brutal honesty reflected there convinced me to trust her during those first few months we worked together in the woods. When Katniss sent the arrow flying, I could see the choice in her mind: for some inexplicable reason, killing Coin was the best thing she could do for herself - and for everyone else. When she reached down for her nightlock pill, fumbling with it as a guard grabbed onto her, I watched with rage. Who did she think she was, to decide the fate of the entire country? Then she was screaming my name, and I felt her eyes pleading blindly with me, and I felt the anger of three years come bursting forth in my rigid body. I knew what she wanted. But I refused to move. My bow rested calmly on my back, my hunting knife itched against my upper thigh. My hands neared neither of them.

She was desperate. But how many times had I been desperate for her? Countless. How many times did she acknowledge me? Not once. And her decision to kill Coin - well, she rarely had her priorities straight. I watched Katniss struggle, screaming, with more demented agony than I had ever seen her display on screen or at home.

I took pity. I reached for my bow, slung it into the perfect position for a shot - and she disappeared behind a wall of bodies. Her muffled screams slammed to a halt behind a closed door. Gone. Gone from my life forever. Alive, when she wanted to be dead. I couldn't tell if either of these conclusions were good or bad.

I watch her singing in her cell. I wish I had taken the shot now. Because it is clear she is in an unfathomable amount of pain; she has forsaken her trust in the possibility of good in the world; she has abandoned herself. If nothing else, I owe her this. I push back my chair and move to the witness stand, ignoring the protests from the judge that I resume my seat. I pushed her to this level of distress. I let her be caught. I sit in the creaky old chair and listen to the strains of a familiar mountain air swing through Katniss' throat. It's her plea to me. Save me. Free me.

Kill me.

I brush my hair back from my face and begin to speak under the tones of her song. The judge and jury lean forward to hear better. I have never been good with words like Peeta. I know this will not make amends, not entirely. But I must help her if I can. I owe her that much.

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><p><strong>Critical reviews always appreciated. <strong>


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